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More Blumenthal Claims on Vietnam Emerge

WASHINGTON — Broader newspaper archival searches have continued to turn up claims by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut that he was a Vietnam War veteran, even though he did not serve in the war.

The most recent claim unearthed was in a report published in The Milford Mirror, a weekly, describing an appearance he made at a May 2007 Memorial Day parade in Milford, Conn., attended by local officials, military people and the relatives of a local man killed while serving in Iraq.

As people gathered around a bandstand to give praise to fallen veterans, the article said, Mr. Blumenthal recalled his days during the Vietnam War.

“In Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said, according to the article, “we had to endure taunts and insults, and no one said, ‘Welcome home.’ I say welcome home.”

The disclosure of the Milford episode came days after The New York Times reported that Mr. Blumenthal, who is running for the United States Senate, had falsely claimed that he had served in Vietnam, and had failed to correct reports in the news media that perpetuated the claim.

In one instance, according to the report in The Times, Mr. Blumenthal told a Norwalk audience in 2008, “We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam.”

The article also described his attendance at a rally in Bridgeport, where about 100 military families gathered to express support for American troops overseas. “When we returned, we saw nothing like this,” he said. “Let us do better by this generation of men and women.”

The Times also reported that Mr. Blumenthal received five deferments that allowed him to avoid the war and, among other things, travel abroad to study and to work in the White House. He joined the Marine Corps Reserve, considered a haven from the war, in early 1970, when deferments had come under review by the Nixon administration.

Mr. Blumenthal has acknowledged that on occasion he has misspoken about his military service. But he has said that he never intentionally misled the public about his military record.

He spoke about the controversy at the state’s Democratic Party Convention on Friday night, where delegates chose him as the party’s nominee for the seat being vacated by Senator Christopher J. Dodd. The report in The Times was followed by a report in The Advocate of Stamford that described Mr. Blumenthal’s speaking about his military service at the Stamford Veterans Day parade on Nov. 9, 2008.

“I wore the uniform in Vietnam,” he said, “and many came back to all kinds of disrespect. Whatever we think of war, we owe the men and women of the armed forces our unconditional support.”

A version of this article appears in print on May 22, 2010, on page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: More Claims of Service in Vietnam Emerge. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe